Hunting Heartbreak

Shot this elk just before 6 PM, Sept. 29th. Waited an hour and started tracking. Found blood right away and tracked about 100 yards until it got too dark. Came back the next morning and continued for 7 hours and over 2 kms. Several times we spent an hour crawling on hands and knees to pick up the trail again. It would but disappear, and then we'd come across a big pool like this. We found 5 of these pools, but somehow it kept going. My only explanation is, because it was somewhat quartered away when I shot it, I probably single-lunged it. After 10 hours in total through the thickest, nastiest brush, up and down hills, and no blood for an hour, we finally called it a loss. This hurts man.
I know these are tough animals, but this is crazy! I will be going in again on the weekend and see if I can find birds and maybe they can direct me to where he expired.
Anyone else ever experienced something like this with an elk?

#pkalbertahunting #elk #alberta #hunting #heartbroken